Witch Finger Cookies (without food coloring!)

These healthier witch finger cookies use jam in place of food coloring! Can be made with all-purpose flour or with whole wheat for a 100% whole grain version. The perfect Halloween dessert!

I’m preparing for a Halloween party and had no intention of posting these bloody witch fingers but after seeing how they came out, I just have to! I hope you can forgive me. ;)

I’ve been struggling with coming up with Halloween desserts that are totally free of processed food so I was ridiculously happy to have come across these!

All of the witch finger cookies I found use red decorating gel. Food coloring doesn’t normally bother me (I know it should) but the thought of eating red decorating gel makes me queasy.

So here we have some awesome strawberry jam. And it complements the almond flavor perfectly.

To be honest, I think these shortbread cookies are kind of boring tasting without the jam. And I’m not a crunchy cookie kind of girl. I think out of all my cookie recipes,
only 2-3 aren’t soft and chewy.

Strawberry jam helps a lot. Raspberry jam would also be great but for the blood effect, I think strawberry is better.

If you don’t have white whole wheat flour, you could use all-purpose flour in these witch finger cookies. I’m guessing whole spelt would also work well! You may need to add a tiny bit of extra flour if the dough is extra sticky.

So what kind of desserts are you making for Halloween? I’m bummed I’m just now getting on the Halloween bandwagon. These bloody witch finger cookies are so fun!

Directions

Beat the butter and sugar together until fluffy. Add the egg, almond extract, and vanilla extract and mix. When well combined, add the flour and salt. When thoroughly combined, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 40 minutes.

Preheat your oven to 325°F (165°C). Take about a fourth of the dough out of the fridge and begin rolling out the fingers. I rolled them out the size of my pinky, both in length and thickness. Add an almond to the tip for the fingernail and press down to make sure it's secure. Form a knuckle by squeezing (see the picture above!) and then use a knife to make some creases. Place on a Silpat on a cookie sheet (or just a cookie sheet), leaving about a centimeter between them. Repeat with the rest of the dough until the cookie sheet is full.

Bake for 17 - 22 minutes or until slightly golden. Let the cookies cool, and then remove the almonds from the cookies. Add some jam in the cavities and then put the almonds back, making sure you used enough jam for them to ooze a little. Also add some jam around knuckles for extra nastiness. I used about 1/2 cup jam and used the rest as "dip."

Notes

You need 2 2/3 cups of flour total. You can see my comment about this here.

If you live in Germany, you need to use half Type 550 for the all-purpose flour and half Type 405 (which is the normal kind you find everywhere). You can get Type 550 at any non-discounter. For the almond extract, I used two vials of Bittermandel Backaroma.

I’m so sorry for just now seeing your question! I’m probably too late now but for anyone else wondering, almond flour won’t work but a GF 1-to-1 flour might. But I’m really not sure since I haven’t tried it. Sorry again!

These didn’t work out for me, they all came out completely thin & flat. I’m not sure what I did wrong. In the recipe it lists 1 1/3 cup of flour twice, so was it supposed to be 2 2/3 cups of flour total? I assumed it was accidentally listed twice, so only did the 1 1/3 cups. Is that where I messed up?
Thank you!

Hello! The recipe is correct, so that’s indeed where you went wrong. You can see my comment about the flour in this comment. I’m sorry about that! I’m not sure of how else to list it to divide it up properly.

Thanks! It’s been a long time since I posted these but I think I tested out both versions (putting on the jam before and after baking) and they looked nicer when you add the jam afterwards. Hope you’ll enjoy the cookies!

Your comment worked (but you’re no longer on Pinterest. ;)) The flour isn’t a typo. You can either use all all-purpose flour or white whole wheat (2 2/3 cups total) or you can use a mix of all-purpose flour and whole wheat flour, if you want. I separated it like that because I don’t recommend using all traditional whole wheat flour, because these will taste very wheaty. My favorite way is with all white whole wheat – it’s all the nutrition of regular whole wheat but not so wheat-y tasting! I hope that makes sense. :)

I made these for our school staff luncheon and they were a hit! Everyone loved the look, and they weren’t overly sweet. I also jokingly said “Arthritic” fingers made arthritic fingers. (Not far from the the truth)

These look SOOO awesome! I've seen these witch finger cookies before, but they have never looked this good! Or bad. I'm not sure how to say that, but hopefully you know what I mean. These are awesome :D

Uuhh..spooky! But shortbread with strawberry jam sounds soo yummy! And I totally miss having those little vials for flavorings. I know they can be awkward to handle, but somehow they always bring up nostalgic childhood memories of Christmas cookie baking.